Aesthetics and class interests: Rethinking Kant

Abstract

Immanuel Kant's philosophy of the aesthetic is typically celebrated by bourgeois critics as a transcendence of the social, an interpretation largely accepted by anglophone Marxism. This article rethinks Kant's concept of ‘interest’ around the question of social compulsion. The ‘pure judgement’ involved in aesthetic production and reception is understood as providing an institutionalized space for reflection on and not merely reflection of social determinations. Drawing on Kojin Karatani's reading of Kant, the article stresses the communicative dimension of the aesthetic in relation to a universal that is not given. The Kantian aesthetic can be read as one which inscribes the classed other into its very form. The novelty of this reading is highlighted by comparing the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Rancière. The article argues that their respective sociological and philosophical positions do not adequately assess whether practices are identical to their immediate conditions of existence.